impletons only laughed, and said that 'those
were not the sort of things to gain the affections.' I wish I had kept
copies in my own justification. What is worse, I have an utter aversion
to blue-stockings. I do not care a fig for any woman that knows even
what an author means. If I know that she has read anything I have
written, I cut her acquaintance immediately. This sort of literary
intercourse with me passes for nothing. Her critical and scientific
acquirements are _carrying coals to Newcastle._ I do not want to be told
that I have published such or such a work. I knew all this before. It
makes no addition to my sense of power. I do not wish the affair to be
brought about in that way. I would have her read my soul: she should
understand the language of the heart: she should know what I am, as
if she were another self! She should love me for myself alone. I like
myself without any reason: I would have her do so too. This is not
very reasonable. I abstract from my temptations to admire all the
circumstances of dress, birth, breeding, fortune; and I would not
willingly put forward my own pretensions, whatever they may be. The
image of some fair creature is engraven on my inmost soul; it is on that
I build my claim to her regard, and expect her to see into my heart, as
I see her form always before me. Wherever she treads, pale primroses,
like her face, vernal hyacinths, like her brow, spring up beneath her
feet, and music hangs on every bough; but all is cold, barren, and
desolate without her. Thus I feel, and thus I think. But have I over
told her so? No. Or if I did, would she understand it? No. I 'hunt the
wind, I worship a statue, cry aloud to the desert.' To see beauty is not
to be beautiful, to pine in love is not to be loved again--I always
was inclined to raise and magnify the power of Love. I thought that his
sweet power should only be exerted to join together the loveliest
forms and fondest hearts; that none but those in whom his godhead shone
outwardly, and was inly felt, should ever partake of his triumphs; and
I stood and gazed at a distance, as unworthy to mingle in so bright a
throng, and did not (even for a moment) wish to tarnish the glory of so
fair a vision by being myself admitted into it. I say this was my notion
once, but God knows it was one of the errors of my youth. For coming
nearer to look, I saw the maimed, the blind, and the halt enter in,
the crooked and the dwarf, the ugly, the old and impo